


next time

by rangerhitomi



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Drinking & Talking, M/M, Miscommunication, Valentine's Day Fluff, Wingmen Kai and Miwa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 19:16:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17924720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: Mamoru asks Ibuki to dinner but Ibuki 1) thinks it's for a work meeting, and 2) doesn't realize it's Valentine's Day.





	next time

**Author's Note:**

> pretend it's still valentine's day and not a week and a half later

It was cold, but mercifully not snowing as Ibuki made his way home that evening.

Six-thirty was earlier than he normally left the office, but he was meeting with Mamoru at eight at the Dragon Empire branch and Mamoru had insisted that he go home and get changed into more comfortable clothes and _I’ll know if you don’t go home_ so despite feeling as though Mamoru’s empty threat would yield no actual consequences, and despite having so much work to finish regarding the remodelling of the Oracle Think Tank portion of the United Sanctuary headquarters, he headed home to change out of his work things and get his bus pass, which he had inconveniently left on his kitchen counter.

Miwa had called earlier, demanding to know Ibuki’s plans for the evening, but didn’t seem to believe Ibuki when he said he _had_ plans that didn’t entirely involve him sitting at his desk until two in the morning. When Ibuki insisted that he had a meeting with Mamoru, Miwa had gone oddly quiet, Ibuki just able to make out the sound of a second, deeper voice in the background saying something and Miwa sighing with a dramatic _if you say so_ and _I guess we’ll try again next week_ and hung up.

So Ibuki was more than a little surprised to see Miwa and Kai waiting outside his apartment door when he finally got home.

“I told you I had plans,” Ibuki said irritably as he unlocked his door and reluctantly let his friends in before him.

“Miwa didn’t believe you,” Kai said without preamble, taking off his shoes but leaving his coat on.

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s not that I didn’t believe him, don’t be like that, Kai.”

It was certainly _exactly_ like that; Ibuki knew Miwa better than he knew most people. “I’m not staying long, I have to go to Dragon Empire.”

Miwa ignored his vague hint that he wanted them to leave and flopped on the sofa. “Lame, come get drunk with us instead.”

“Why Dragon Empire?” Kai asked with more tact.

Ibuki placed his bus pass back in his wallet and shoved it in his coat pocket. He headed toward his small bedroom for a change of clothes, glancing back to reply, “A meeting.”

Kai glanced at the clock and frowned, but didn’t say anything.

“With who?” Miwa called after Ibuki, who, having already told Miwa earlier in the day the meeting was with Mamoru, ignored him.

A lilac button-down shirt and black slacks seemed casual enough for a business meeting while still being comfortable, so Ibuki changed quickly and headed back into the living room to grab his coat and leave, but Kai, still leaning by the front door with his arms crossed, cleared his throat.

“Where’s your belt?”

Ibuki glanced down at his pants. “They fit fine.”

“No.” Kai grabbed Ibuki by the arm and dragged him back to his room. “You can’t wear dress slacks without a belt.”

And he promptly pulled open Ibuki’s closet door.

It wasn’t as though Ibuki was a disorganized or generally messy person, but his closet left something to be desired. Socks sat in a tote on the floor, half of which were unmated because Ibuki was too tired after doing laundry two nights ago to mate everything, pants were unceremoniously draped over hangers, and Kai managed to spot a single black belt sitting on top of the tote of socks as he muttered something in incredulous French under his breath.

“I’m coming over tomorrow to fix this,” he said, deftly pulling the belt through Ibuki’s belt loops and clasping it snugly under Ibuki’s belly button before tucking Ibuki’s shirt in.

The whole process made Ibuki feel like a grade schooler being chided by his mother, and he felt his face heat up. “This is hardly necessary, Mamoru doesn’t care if I’m wearing a belt or not--”

“I care,” Kai said, stepping back to survey Ibuki critically. “You’re missing something.”

Ibuki threw up his hands. “It’s just a casual meeting!”

Miwa joined them, leaning on Kai’s shoulder with his elbow. “A vest,” he said, and Kai made an _mm_ of agreement.

Suddenly, Ibuki was standing in his living room, wearing his lilac shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a buttoned black vest over his belted black slacks, while Kai stood behind him, pulling his hair back into a high ponytail.

“This is entirely too much for a--”

“Casual business meeting, yeah, yeah.” Miwa brushed Ibuki’s bangs to the side. “What’s today, Ibuki?”

The past several days had been much of a blur, and Ibuki squinted at the ceiling to remember. “It’s… Thursday?”

Kai cleverly disguised his snort as him clearing his throat, but Miwa was not quite as stealthy, and Ibuki frowned at him. “What.”

“Nothing, nothing, you’re just…” Miwa waved his hands aimlessly. “Here, we’ll walk you to the bus stop, but then Kai and I are are getting trashed and then video chatting Aichi. You can join us after your… meeting, if you want.”

The thought of having a beer after working so much this week was appealing. Ibuki would take the invitation into consideration, even though he knew Kai would never let himself become overly inebriated when talking to Aichi, lest he embarrass himself. Miwa, on the other hand, would and had. More than once. It might be funny.

They bade him a good night at the bus stop, and he headed for Dragon Empire.

* * *

It was dimly lit and empty when he arrived at quarter to eight. Mamoru’s texts had told him to meet him in the lobby at eight, but since he was early and Mamoru wasn’t there, Ibuki leaned against the banister of the large staircase on the far end of the hall. The ambiance of the branch after hours was almost eerie; the low, reddish light and menacing statues casting shadows across the tile floor gave the lobby a desolate feeling. Fitting, perhaps, for the headquarters of the branch representing the most menacing dragons of Cray.

“Oh, you’re early.”

Mamoru headed through the hall, a large paper bag in his arms, one of his hands wrapped around the slender neck of a wine bottle.

Ibuki was suddenly very confused.

“You look really nice,” Mamoru added, pausing next to Ibuki to take in his clothes. He laughed as he glanced down at himself, dressed down in a blue turtleneck and beige khakis. “Sorry, Tokoha wanted to ask my opinions on a date she’s going on and I lost track of time... “

Ibuki stared at the bag and the bottle of wine and Mamoru made an _ah!_ of realization. “I brought some food… and this plum wine is delicious, I’m sure you’ve had it before, right?”

Something was amiss; a familiar scenario played out in Ibuki’s mind, this same situation three years ago, with Mamoru buying a nice dinner and them playing Vanguard…

He pulled out his phone and looked back at the message Mamoru had sent earlier in the day.

_Can I meet you at Dragon Empire at eight?_

“Are you okay?”

Had he assumed _can I meet you_ meant _I would like to meet with you about FIVA_ and not _can we have dinner_ and now he was beginning to suspect that Miwa and Kai knew--

Of course; Miwa had asked if he knew what day it was. He hadn’t thought anything of it then, it was Thursday, that was all that mattered, but it wasn’t a normal Thursday, was it?

“Ibuki?”

“What’s today’s date?”

Mamoru tilted his head. “The fourteenth, why?”

Ibuki went to run his hand through his hair before remembering that Kai had pulled it up into a ponytail. It wasn’t too late to apologize for wasting Mamoru’s time, or to tell him that he had other things to do (like sit on the sofa in his house with a cup of tea and do some preparations for an upcoming meeting). But seeing Mamoru there, carrying a bottle of wine much too big for Mamoru to drink on his own, holding a bag full of food--Ibuki could smell grilled fish--made him feel guilty for doing so, not when Mamoru had clearly planned a quiet evening for the two of them, and--

Mamoru’s shoulders fell a little as he sighed. “I, I guess I wasn’t clear with the text I sent earlier, was I…?”

“It was my misunderstanding,” Ibuki said, a little hoarsely. “I... “ He hesitated, the _I don’t mind_ dying in his throat. It wasn’t as though it was a lie, really; he enjoyed being around Mamoru, as much as he enjoyed people, and Mamoru was a challenging rival when it came to Vanguard.  “I’ll help you carry this up, it smells good.” The evening wouldn’t be awkward, he decided, because when they cardfought, conversation came easily.

He just had to get through dinner first.

To Ibuki’s relief, Mamoru hadn’t decorated his office at all, simply set up a table and two chairs in the middle of the floor where empty dishes waited to be filled. They filled the bowls and plates with miso soup, hibachi vegetables, grilled fish, and rice; the realization that he hadn’t eaten anything except a single rice cake from the vending machine in the office lounge at eleven in the morning and three cups of coffee all day hit him as the smell of the hot food filled his nose.

“Here.” Mamoru pulled out Ibuki’s chair and gestured for him to sit before pouring the both of them a half-glass of wine.

It was sweet wine, sweeter than Ibuki generally preferred his alcohol, but still good; the hibachi was marinated in a delicious ginger sauce that paired well with the fish and rice. Ibuki devoured his food with embarrassing haste; he was finished with his first plate before Mamoru had even finished his vegetables. Mamoru didn’t bother to hide his smile as he got up to pile more food on Ibuki’s plate and pour some more wine for the both of them (more than halfway, this time).

They chatted about work (Ryutaro had taken to mysteriously vanishing for long periods of time in the mid-afternoon when he was supposed to be in meetings with the other branch chiefs; Ibuki understood this well, as Ren often “didn’t feel like going” and would sit on a sofa in his office playing games on his phone while Ibuki tried to explain to the other branch chiefs over speaker phone that trying to force Ren to go to a meeting he didn’t want to attend was akin to trying to knock down a building by pushing on the wall), Mamoru talked about how Tokoha was preparing to return to France as part of a pre-university study program and that he was trying to get her to talk to Kai about how he prepared for his two year stint in the Euro League (Ibuki dismissed this idea, reminding Mamoru that Kai’s French was mediocre at best and that Tokoha was already better versed in French culture from the short time she’d studied there before).

The conversation was lighthearted and relaxing, far different from conversations they’d had before over dinner or Vanguard, and Ibuki found himself laughing for the first time in what felt like ages over an embarrassing retelling of a time Mamoru had accidentally put a hospital gown on backward while running on forty-five minutes of sleep in three days and had Chrono walk in on him. Mamoru was certainly getting a little drunk, because this was not a story he would have told of his own volition otherwise, and his face was getting red, though not from embarrassment. As he poured one last glass of wine, he seemed surprised to find that the bottle was now empty, and Ibuki had only had two glasses.

“Ah… embarrassing…” Mamoru’s laugh was more of an unseeming giggle and his cheeks and nose were splotchy. “I don’t normally get drunk…”

Ibuki, who had finished off the rest of the food, didn’t really have much to say about that.

Mamoru tried to clean up the dishes, but ended up dropping three plates on the way to the staff room (none broke) so Ibuki gently led him back to his chair and took over. It took only a few minutes to wash the dishes, but Ibuki didn’t know where they had come from so he left them on the counter and returned to Mamoru’s office, where Mamoru was face-down on the table.

Ibuki sighed and shook Mamoru’s shoulder. “Hey.”

“Mm? I’m awake…” Mamoru sat up, eyes drooping. “Want to fight?”

Incredible, Ibuki thought; Mamoru had only drunk four glasses of wine and was intoxicated. A lightweight, clearly, much like Kai who fell asleep after two beers. He wouldn’t have minded playing Vanguard if only Mamoru were fully alert and focused. Fighting Mamoru like this would have been almost like fighting a puppy. “No, I think we should get you home.”

“Mm.” Mamoru’s head landed on the table with a _thud._

Ibuki sighed again.

It took some effort, but he managed to get Mamoru to the staff room and up onto the sofa, and Ibuki certainly wasn’t about to leave him there. The floor was too uncomfortable for him to sit on for too long, and if he was going to have to stay for a while while Mamoru slept off his drunken state, he wanted to be comfortable, so he lifted Mamoru’s head up, sat on the sofa, and laid Mamoru’s head back down on his lap. Not ideal, perhaps, but the most comfortable position he could physically get them both in, so he was just going to have to face the inevitable awkwardness of Mamoru waking up sober in a few hours to find that he’d fallen asleep on Ibuki.

“Ibuki…?”

Ibuki glanced down at Mamoru, who tilted his head up, not completely aware yet of the fact that he was sleeping on Ibuki’s lap. “Oh, you’re awake.”

“Mm.” Mamoru smiled sleepily. “Did I tell you that you looked nice…? Because you look really nice…”

 _Go back to sleep,_ Ibuki wanted to say, but he just smiled instead. “You did already. But thanks.”

“Mm.” Mamoru rested his head on Ibuki’s lap again and closed his eyes. “Can you tell Tokoha I’m staying the night with you and not to worry…”

The thought of texting Mamoru’s sister to tell her that her brother was staying over with his date on Valentine’s Day night was not something Ibuki relished. But she would worry, he thought, if her straight-laced workaholic brother didn’t come home and didn’t text, so he pulled Mamoru’s phone from his back pocket and pulled up Tokoha’s name. The last text she’d sent Mamoru was still on the screen, and Ibuki couldn’t help but read it.

_Good luck on your date with Ibuki-san tonight! I hope it goes well for you and that you don’t embarrass yourself. (｡’▽’｡)♡_

He felt a twinge of guilt for reading it, quickly replaced by a kind of warmth at her concern for her brother, both his well-being and his social life. He typed out a carefully-worded message and hit send.

_Mamoru got a little drunk so I’m keeping him where he is tonight. Please don’t worry about him, he’s fine. -Ibuki_

(She would probably shake her head in disbelief, maybe laugh that Mamoru had ended up embarrassing himself, but at least this way she wouldn’t think things had ended up… more compromising.)

“Sorry for embarrassing myself,” Mamoru mumbled into Ibuki’s thigh.

“You’re fine.”

“Mm… I just lost track of how much I’d had… I felt comfortable with you... “

Ibuki’s chest tightened.

Mamoru laughed quietly. “This is embarrassing too, huh? Sorry…”

“Don’t worry about it. Next time--” The words were out of Ibuki’s mouth before he could help himself, but it was too late to take them back, and he meant them regardless. Best to finish the thought, perhaps. “Next time I won’t let you drink.”

“Next time, huh?” A warm smile crept onto Mamoru’s sleepy face. “That would be nice… next time…”

Mamoru slipped back into a deep sleep, leaving Ibuki to ponder a future date with Mamoru, something that he wouldn’t mistake for a business meeting, something where he could pick out his own outfit and come prepared to relax instead of discuss goings-on with FIVA or their respective branches.

Next time…

...he’d like that.

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know how to write ibuki or mamoru but i like to think that mamoru is the kind of tired drunk who falls asleep after half a bottle of wine because he's an old man


End file.
